Montalvo, a US military lawyer, who first found Jawad in Guantanamo and then helped him to get freed, said it was unacceptable to deprive an innocent individual from freedom for seven years and then 'not give him any compensation'.

'There is no difference between being confined in Guantanamo Bay or being left out in the wild without assistance,' he added.

President Hamid Karzai welcomed Jawad's release and asked government authorities to assist him and his family after receiving Jawad in his presidential palace, Karzai's office said in a statement.

A US federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release him last month and the government was given until Monday to respond. Jawad was flown by a US military plane to Kabul, where he joined his mother, the only member of his family.

Jawad is the latest prisoner to leave the controversial facility, which President Barack Obama has directed to be closed by the end of the year. More than 200 detainees remain locked up there.